Mexico goes to the polls

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
By William E. Gibson

WASHINGTON Mexican voters will elect a new president Sunday in a close contest between contrasting candidates who promise to create enough good jobs to keep people from streaming into the United States. Nobody expects the next Mexican president to stop illegal migration to Florida and other job magnets any time soon. But Mexico's economy is growing at a rate of 4 percent annually, and some U.S. observers are optimistic the winner can create conditions that eventually reduce hazardous passages north of the border. The reverberations will be felt all the way to South Florida, home to an increasing number of Mexicans who come to work in fields, restaurants and construction sites. Of more than 200,000 Mexicans living in the state, nearly 1,200 registered to vote in the election.

Mexicans in Florida and around the world were allowed for the first time to vote in a presidential election. By casting absentee ballots, they will help decide a close race between Felipe Calderon, a center-right candidate backed by the upper classes, and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a populist former mayor of Mexico City supported by many poor and working-class Mexicans.